Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 79692 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 398(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79692 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 398(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
In The Den, however, Alejandro was simply known as The Masked Wolf, a persona he donned only when he couldn’t fuck his way out of a bad mood. And right now, he was in an extremely bad mood.
He needed to fight. He should have been fighting now, should have been inside the damn steel cage and covered in blood by now. But he wasn’t. Alejandro cracked his knuckles, trying to control the urge to go berserk.
Fighting was the only way to forget. But because he wasn’t fighting, memories hounded his every step.
Earlier tonight, Domenico had warned him and his twin not to attend the ball at Lyccan Hall. “It’s going to be more vicious than usual tonight,” their eldest brother had said. “They will be laughing behind my back all the time, and I do not want either of you to see it.”
Domenico Moretti used to be the most powerful and feared warrior in the entire Lyccan race. But then his human wife left him. Domenico had not bothered to hide his heartbreak, and he had become a laughingstock after that. Nowadays, other Lyccans had taken to calling him a dog, a pet to humans. Nowadays, everyone liked to sneer at Domenico about his wife taking a gay-looking Faerie for a lover.
He and his twin Alessandro had, of course, ignored Domenico’s warning. They had gone to the ball because Morettis always stuck together. In minutes, Alessandro’s hot-headedness had gotten him involved in a brawl. His way of avenging Domenico’s name was direct: to punch whoever had a bad thing to say about their brother.
Alejandro’s form of revenge was more subtle. He found a woman to fuck in one of the balconies. Her name was Monica. She was beautiful and voluptuous, just the way he liked it. She was also the wife of one of Domenico’s enemies, also the way he liked it.
In minutes, he had her screaming. In fact, Monica had screamed so loud it was obvious she had forgotten she was married. By the time they came in from the balcony, all the guests were staring, including her husband. It would have been the sweetest revenge if only Domenico hadn’t stared at Alejandro with a tight-lipped look of disappointment on his face.
And then...
Alejandro swore. He wished he could throw the memory out of his mind for good, but it was impossible. He remembered it so fucking clearly.
Domenico, humbly delivering an apology on his behalf—-
Domenico, being slapped like a goddamn slave by Monica’s husband, a fat old man who would never have stood a chance against his brother if Domenico had been in the mind to fight him.
Domenico, not bothering to retaliate because he was taking the blame for Alejandro’s dishonor-—
It had been too much.
And so here he was.
Only in The Den could he fight. Only in The Den could he pretend. Only in The Den could he forget that Domenico, once the most powerful wolf of their race, was now called The Prince of Dogs, and there was not a damn thing Alejandro could do to make things right for his brother.
Chapter One
CALYS
My breasts hurt.
The pain was similar to having a pair of sore giant lumps connected to my body. The pain reminded me of something I tended to forget. I may have been raised with panthers, but I wasn’t one. I was human, and I could die of breast cancer.
But the pain’s all worth it, I told myself valiantly. Tonight was proof of it. My aching breasts, the result of an opponent’s hard jab to my chest, were also proof of it. I was in The Den. I had made it to the strongest fighting class. And because of that, I finally had the chance to pick my future partner from the cream of the crop.
Black Mamba, my first opponent, had potential. He had an eight pack, a must for me. I was also an expert when it came to guesstimating body mass indexes, and just by looking at Black Mamba, I knew he was at 24.4. That meant only a little over one-fifth of his body was made of fat. Not bad at all, although he really could have gotten that down to twenty-three. A couple more push-ups each day would have done the trick.
Rare Bear was good, too. His skills in tae kwon do were amazing, but there was something strange with the way he fought. He always had his pinky finger turned up, like a queen holding a teacup. Could that mean anything?
I continued mentally scoring potential consorts as I hurried down another tunnel. If all roads led to Rome, all tunnels under Naples, Florida led to The Den. The tunnels were dark and narrow. Lights were only installed in the intersections. They were sparsely decorated with plain wooden tables and chairs, and they served as waiting areas for fighters without dressing rooms.